venneh 's review for:

The World Wasn't Ready for You: Stories by Justin C. Key

4.0

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I ended up picking this up after being intrigued by his piece in Out There Screaming. These are some inherently creepy stories that look at the prison system and experimentation, a story that feels like a response to "Story of Your Life", a story that messes around with storytelling via email exchanges, and some absolutely amazing imagery. My only criticism is that a lot of the storytelling seems to lean on the reveal and not necessarily on dealing with the fallout of the reveal, but again, this is his first collection, so he's got lots of chances to grow. I'm definitely going to be following him in the future.